I don’t remember how long we sat like that, in stunned silence, me blinking back burning tears. What I do remember, little bird, is the breeze through my hair, how soft it was on my cheeks, delicate and calm. For a moment I couldn’t comprehend how those things could live side by side, the awful and the sublime. But in time Imlay peeled away my hands and took them in his. I looked into his sad eyes, and saw that he was as shaken as I was.

That was the day we couldn’t be parted, not for anything.

He took me to his apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, up a winding staircase, and into a series of rooms with warm parquet floors, all the walls, doors, even shutters painted a perfect robin’s-egg blue. It had begun to rain. Imlay lit a candelabra, took my hand, and led me to his bed. We fell into it wordlessly, but with complete understanding. We both wanted, needed, an act of love to erase the hate we’d just witnessed, still raw in our minds. There was no desperation in it (that would come later), but an abiding kindness between us. His eyes glimmered with sympathy, his kisses were softer than soft. Imlay was at ease in his body, and he made me at ease in mine. Together we made ourselves a place of safety.

We were soon tangled in bed linens, both spent, my hair spilled across the pillow, our skin moist with sweat. I reached my hand to the dappled light from the curtained window. He pressed his palm to mine, lined our fingers edge to edge. The carnelian stone in my ring seemed lit from within. Imlay spun it round on my finger.

“From a former lover?”

“You, the jealous sort?”

“The interested sort,” he said, and asked with his eyes if he could slip the ring off my finger. I let him do it, let him try it on, but it only went as far as his first knuckle.

“You can’t have it,” I said, turning toward him. “It’s all I have left.”

“Oh,” he said, with a crease in his brow. “Dead, then?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” He laid his head on the pillow to face mine. Except for two ravines from his cheek to his jaw where he smiled, his skin was taut and burnished by sun, the most perfect golden brown. His strong chin sprouted flecks of brown and white.

I felt the indentation the ring had left at the base of my finger, studied the thin circle of white skin. “Strange. I haven’t had it off since that day.”

He replaced the ring with a light touch. “You must have loved him very much.”

“Her,” I said. “I loved her. Very much.” Fanny still, after all this time, made tears fall from my eyes. Imlay caught one on his finger, and put it on his tongue.